Oathday, Erastus 31

As we entered the lair of Envy, there was a little hesitancy on the part of the party. While the warning of having our powers crushed was doubtless just hyperbole, it did put everybody on edge. Takkad, as seems customary of late, was in the lead.

There was a metal rod – or did it used to be a sword? – melded into the ground near the center of the room, and this seemed to conduct the occasional electrical discharge that still flitted from place to place. I was eerily reminded of the aftermath of a lightning strike that had been charged with a little too much electricity. And as we started to file into the room the danger we’d been warned of became far more real. The rod embedded in the ground flashed blindingly, and things felt … odd.

Takkad was the first to announce: “I’ve lost status.” And Kane: “Me too.” I realized I did not have my mage armor – ha, joke’s on me. I’d forgotten to cast it! But now I turned on my detect magic and was dismayed to find that I had not been immune to the effect. My ring of protection was no longer magic; nor were my bracers of defense. I suddenly felt very vulnerable, and quickly cast mage armor.

Around me arose cries of dismay. “Not my sword!” screamed Avia. “My bracers!” agonized Rigel. Fully half of our magic items seemed to have had the magic sucked out of them.

Now in my case, we had a spare +2 ring of protection and +3 bracers of defense that had been safe within a bag of holding, but not everyone was so lucky. Many of the items our party had considered important were now useless pieces of metal, paper, or wood.

So this is what the warning had meant. Fantastic.

And then as electricity continued to arc randomly in the room, it occurred to us that it could happen again at any time, and the whole place became much less fascinating.

Still, we were here because there might be something valuable here, so Takkad, Nolin, Kane, and Sabin started entering a passageway nearby. But there were putrid pools of filth, garbage, or sewage (we never did determine which) and it clearly made at least Nolin stagger noticeably. They disappeared from view as the moved down the corridor, and I did not feel motivated to follow them. Takkad told me later they encountered acid-laden air and finally returned abruptly when the air just became too foul. Kane’s wand of lesser restoration was necessary to restore them all to full health, and in some cases more than one charge was needed. Takkad channelled positive energy to help remedy the damage from acid air.

And they found nothing useful.

Perhaps there was something valuable here, but the pools of foul liquid and the random cancellation of magic from time to time was enough to make us leave. On to Kharzoug, and the hall of Greed.

Shortly after leaving the area of Envy, we discovered that for most of the magic items, their neutralization was temporary. Avia, in particular, was most pleased to see her sword regain its powers. My bracers, alas, were permanently damaged but as I mentioned, we had spares.

As we entered the corridor of Greed, Rigel found the passage to be quite easy. The rest of us struggled to varying degrees to reach the impatient Rigel. Rigel took the lead, looking for traps. The corridor led to a single door, which, after an inspection, Rigel pronounced to be a trap. It appeared to have jewels embedded in it, but Rigel also prounounced these to be fakes (with traces of disappointment in her voice).

After some additional searching, Rigel was able to find a secret door, and defeat the lock/trap that guarded it. We found a beautiful tunnel, with polished wood and inlaid silver and gold Thassilonian runes. A cursory look at these seemed to indicate they extolled the life and victories of Kharzoug (big surprise).

Further ahead there was a green, sparkly silver mist. Nobody thought that traipsing through that would be a pleasing experience. Meanwhile, Takkad and Sabin kept reading the runes and talking out loud: although Kharzoug bragged greatly about his prowess with magic, it seems he paid far less attention to (and possessed far less skill in) the schools of illusion and enchantment. He considered himself the enemy of Alaznist. He created the Hellfilre Plumes (of which the old lighthouse in Sandpoint was reputedly one) to help protect his empire.

I studied the mist and was able to detect some transmutation magic, so we created a gust of wind to dispel it. We quickly hurried to the chamber beyond.

Here we found an ivory floor, and a beautiful fountain in the middle of the room with water spouting from the (obviously NOT full size) figure of a whale. Curiously, the fountain never overflowed, so presumably somewhere there was a drain that perfectly matched the rate at which water flowed from the whale.

Perhaps most surprisingly, there were six small, vaguely humanoid figures swimming in the pool, along with what appeared to be the occasional goldfish. Takkad struck up a conversation with them and learned of a mean silver man who seemed to enjoy hurting them. The silver man was big like us. Sometimes he freezes water. He was by just yesterday but didn’t do anything harmful.

Takkad had an inspiration and used his ‘create water’ spell to create a brief waterfall from nowhere. The little creatures were ecstatic and labeled him Water Friend, guaranteeing him friends for life. But they could tell him little additional information.

In the next room we found another fountain, this time with a statue of a wizard and an outstretched hand. Water shot from the hand about 30′ before falling harmlessly into the pool. There seemed to be some magic in the pool of some sort, but nothing on the goldfish that were here.

Exiting to the north, there was a corridor full of doors with knobs. They were metal doors that looked silver, or silver inlaid. But opening one and looking inside didn’t yield anything of interest. The room was empty but for little odds and ends. The rooms had slightly different inventories but all were uninteresting. The strange thing? They all radiated strong magic.

So I stepped up and tried to dispel magic in the room. That seemed to do nothing.

Sedgewick snagged a goldfish and tried tossing it in the room. It flopped a bit, and eventually died; a fish out of water. Kane actually entered one; nothing. He entered and inspected all of the rooms; still nothing.

We went on to the next fountain room, which looked much like the previous right down to the wizard with the outstretched hand and goldfish. There was a door to the south which Rigel checked – it was locked, but not trapped. In a flash, Rigel insured it was no longer locked.

Sabin and Takkad entered first, and found what appeared to be a study. There was a worktable, and bookcases that appeared to hold hundreds of books and scrolls. More ominously there were some animals in metal cases – and a silver mannequin.

Literally, a silver man. Well those darn little sprites were right. He turned to us and .. disappeared. Sabin grunted and said that sure looked like a dimension door to him.

We started to do our “usual thing”. Sedgewick and I started to look over the library. Nolin began to search. Sabin inspected the animals – they were dead and the dog’s hind quarters were solid silver. Avia started trying to detect evil, hoping to determine where the silver man had gone.

Sedgewick found some spellbooks, and was gathering them up while Rigel checked another door for traps. There were none, and she unlocked the door for Avia, who opened it.

This room had statues in what we assumed at first were battle poses. We were alert to the possibility of them suddenly coming to life, until someone pointed out these were not battle positions so much as defensive positions. We had apparently found the rest of the staff in this section. It seemed they’d all involuntaily been turned to statues, and their stance was not attacking, but rather an attempt to stave off whatever magic had done this to them.

Rigel moved to, inspected, and unlocked another door in the room. Avia opened the door – and the silver man was revealed. He was ready, as well, and a greenish ray shot out at Takkad, taking him to the ground grieveously wounded, even as several mirror images sprung up around the silver man.

How did he get two spells off at once?

Sabin didn’t wait to ask questions. He, Nolin and Avia dimension doored to Mr Silver. I sensed I might want extra protection so I cast Spell Resistance on myself. Nolin had time to take out two images, while Sedgewick started singing a song of courage. Meanwhile Takkad started to heal his broken body.

In the middle of the room was a large (40′ across) pool, and Mr Silver was on the opposite side of the pool. Avia took out an image, Sabin took out an image, and I managed to carefully place a fireball out there that hit Mr Silver but nobody else. Unfortunately, he seemed unfazed by it. He DID seem a little more concerned when Nolin actually connected with his sword, though.

Images gone now, Avia started hitting him with sword, fire, and holy power. Mr Silver again managed to get two spells off – a disintegration ray on Nolin and, much to our surprise, he cast fireball on himself, knowing while he would hurt himself, he had an opportunity to perhaps outright kill the fighters surrounding him. Too bad for him I still had a magic missile in me, and that’s all it took to push him over the edge.

Damaged heavily, but not horribly diminished in magic, our group took inventory. Mr Silver left behind

[1180] silver staff of spell holding [40 charges ] also usable as a quarterstaff, +2 damage, +2 INT.
[1181] cloak of resistance +1
[1182] rod of metal and mineral detection
[1183] a belt of mighty constitution +2

As we moved closer to the pool, some of us found it disorienting. Sedgewick, in particular, warned others to stay back as he felt the pool was draining him in some fashion, and he stepped back. Takkad theorized this pool might be a means of charging or recharging magical items. He tried dipping a dead staff [730] into the pool, and identifying it we found it had 5 charges now. Dipped again, it went to 50.

Rigel, her eyes shining, estimated that 300 lbs of mithril silver might be worth 40,000 sp. The group considered whether to sell Mr Silver’s Corpse for metal, as a curiosity, or just leave it, lest someone try to revive it. The possibility of great money, though, has the group leaning towards some form of sale.

In any case, we decided to rest here overnight, and recover spells before proceeding.

Fireday, 1 Arodus

We arose eager to go traverse the corridor dedicated to gluttony. This time Kane was the one who found the path easy for him while the rest of the group tripped, stumbled and slowly made their way down the path. It didn’t take long for us to finally find a door, which Rigel said had no traps and no locks. Opening it, we saw why it needed no guard. Inside were eight mummies, which quickly (well, for a mummy) moved towards us. But the room was just so perfectly shaped for a fireball, that I had to blast them. So I did. Avia was able to take some chunks out, as well as Nolin and Sabin. A second fireball and Takkad’s negative channel knocked out every last one of ’em.

Eight mummies is nothing to sneeze at, but we also dispatched them seemingly easily. Maybe too easily. We’re taking a pause right now to consider what to do next and catch our breaths. At the very least, we’ll likely inspect the smoldering bodies for goodies.